And there are those who wonder how Sprottâ€™s PHYS could have traded at â€œludicrousâ€ NAV premium of over 20%. Coinupdate.com reports that prices at which the Greek Central Bank is selling one ounce gold equivalents are as high as $1,700 (40% over spot), and prices on the black markets are even higher. The punchline, as Athens slowly returns to a forced gold standard: â€œ A popular spot for street vendors to sell their coins is near the Athens Stock Exchange. There the traders wait for citizens to bring payments received from unloading their paper assets like stocks and bonds.â€ Thatâ€™s good – downtown Manhattan close to the NYSE has some free space for gold vendors to set up shop as well, they just need to push some of the frontrunning/collocation boxes off to the side. And in other rhetorical ruminations, is it safe to say that the last days of the fiat experiment are among us now that people themselves are bypassing the government and enforcing their own gold standard?

The fear running through the Greek populace is that the nationâ€™s government may default on some of its debts.

Since 1965, the Greek government has imposed restrictions on trading British Sovereign gold coins (gold content .2354 oz). Despite those restrictions, the Bank of Greece reports that it is selling an average of more than 700 coins per day to worried Greeks.

In the first four months of 2010, the Greek central bank sold more than 50,000 sovereigns at its main downtown Athens office. Bank officials estimate that at least 100,000 other coins changed hands on the black market. The Bank of Greece has received as much as $409 per coin, which works out to a price of more than $1,700 per ounce of gold! Prices paid on the black market are reckoned to be even higher. A popular spot for street vendors to sell their coins is near the Athens Stock Exchange. There the traders wait for citizens to bring payments received from unloading their paper assets like stocks and bonds.

The US government and some state governments such as California are in financial straits as bad as or even worse than Greece. How long will it take before American buyers will have to wait in lines to pay outrageous premiums for what are now bullion-priced gold and silver coins? More than one analyst thinks those days will come within a few months or sooner.

The article then goes on to discuss the well-known gold price supression schemes developed over the past 30 years by JPM, Goldman and the LBMA, which should by now not be news to any readers.

What should, is that if one could found a way to legally transfer 10 or so ounces to Athens, anyone could make $5 grand on the spot. With some patience the same return will be achievable in our very own US of A.